Objective: To quantify and validate the ability of wearable sensors to detect response to symptomatic medication in Parkinson’s Disease (PD).

Background: While clinical visual assessment remains the gold standard, quantifying gait parameters using objective wearable sensors may increase the sensitivity and precision of the assessment, which is especially important during clinical trials of short duration.

Methods: 8 patients with advanced PD receiving levodopa via enteral pump (Duopa®) wore 6 sensors containing a triaxial accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer on their wrists, feet, chest and lumbar spine (APDM, Inc.). The patients performed 2-minute walking trials in both ON and OFF medication (L-DOPA pump) conditions, walking back and forth over a 30-foot distance. APDM’s Mobility Lab software was utilized to calculate 98 unique features of walking for each trial. Results were compared between the ON and OFF conditions using paired t-tests.

Results: When OFF, all patients exhibited significantly lower values for gait speed, stride length, foot strike and toe-off angles, and arm swing velocity compared to the ON condition (p<0.05). Foot strike angle, stride length, and gait speed during both ON and OFF conditions negatively correlated well with the UPDRS III total score (R>0.7, p<0.05).

Conclusions: Wearable sensors reliably detected and quantified a therapeutic response to L-DOPA in advanced PD during a continuous walking task. Interestingly, some, but not all parameters correlated with MDS-UPDRS clinical ratings. These results provide a strong rationale for including quantitative motor assessment of gait using wearable sensors in clinical trials of PD.

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MDS Abstracts - https://www.mdsabstracts.org/abstract/effects-of-l-dopa-on-quantitative-gait-parameters-measured-with-wearable-sensors/